Evolution Performance #458

Welcome back to the Fast Life podcast. On today's episode, we are diving into Evolution

performance cycles, performance driven motorcycle shop that recently moved its base of operations

from Miami, Florida to New Bromples, Texas. Don, the man behind the brand is no stranger

to making power and keeping these machines on the road. So before we get into this episode

with Don, check out our sponsors, Arlen S Motorcycles. Fast Life 10 is going to get

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Kabuto America's down in the description. Now let's get into it.

Hey guys, you ready to let the dogs out?

Don. Oh, Donnie, what do you prefer Don Donnie? It doesn't matter. I go blind both. Everybody

listening. When you hear the word, when you hear the name Donnie, what's the first character

you think of in the world of all the things you know to be named Don or Donnie?

You know, a really bad part about that is I think the wild thornberries and I just want to

fucking a whole time. Either that or it's Donnie Darko, Donnie Brasco, Donnie Walberg.

And then, you know, I was a Ninja Turtles fan growing up, you know, Donatello, Donnie.

Well, where does it start for you, man? Where are you born? Are you born in my, were you at

Miami? I don't want to admit where I was born, honestly. Really? Yeah, I was born in Miami.

Okay. Born in Miami, Raisland, Louisiana. Oh, for real? What part of Louisiana?

Mettery. What's that by?

Hell, 10 minutes from downtown. Oh, for real? New Orleans? You don't have like an accent or

anything that like, it's faded. It has. Oh, it's starting to come back. Since I'm here, I'm

starting to feel a little twang come out now, which is kind of weird. A little coon ass come

out. Yeah, exactly. But that was the thing. I know I had it when I went back to Miami for

a while. I went back to Miami after Katrina. This could be a whole episode on life craziness,

honestly. But yeah, when I went back, it kind of like faded out after a while. I got I feel

like, you know, one of my best friends Corey from main drive is not from that. He's from Lafayette,

right? And hands down, like my favorite food in the world next to street tacos is like proper

you know, Cajun food. You know what I mean? Red beans, rice, gumbo, you know, jambalaya. And I

keep telling them, I want to do like a run through Louisiana, just to go hit the swamps and

eat stuff like that. Like a, and I think they have like the old Easy Rider tour thing that they

did because the movie Easy Rider is a run that they went through. I think it'd be sick. I don't

want to do it on the hardtail though. The roads are awful. Hell, just getting out of Texas is

miserable. Going through Beaumont years, the whole time through Beaumont. I did it enough moving

here. That's crazy. So you literally spent most of your life growing up in Miami?

Yeah, majority of my life was Miami. That's childhood was always right after Katrina. That was

2005. So I've been in Miami since 2005. So I spent 20 years in Miami. God dang, that's a that's a

cultural hotbed, right? That was a bad life decision. I remember my father going, don't do it,

just don't you're going to get stuck there. You're never going to get out of there. You're

going to die there. So when it's like opportunity to go to Texas, I'm like, oh, that's why I'm

out of here. So I bet the cocaine's good down there though. We're not going to talk about that

right now. So like motorcycles, though, where does that start? That's Louisiana.

That's kind of an oddball thing there. My father's history is more crazy than my own. My father was

back in the cocaine cowboy days. Very big boat builder and mentioned in a lot of documentaries

because they were dropping the shipments in Louisiana, right?

I don't know that side of it. I know the Miami side of it because my dad's from there. We moved

away from Miami when I was born. Oh, cocaine Cowboys is like Miami. I'm thinking what's that

movie with Tom Cruise where they were going to mean Arkansas, but they were dropping it out of

the plane in Louisiana swamps. It's fucking American me or something like that. I don't

fucking know. It's a good ass movie. But apparently the CIA was funding the whole thing.

Seems legit. Yeah, it seems legit. Yeah, my dad started doing all that. He was building jet engine

boats. Oh, yeah. So then when I was born, we basically moved over, spent a bit in North Carolina

and then ended up in Louisiana. And then after that, you know, I grew up there, obviously,

but that's Louisiana is really where it started. He was still doing the boats there.

Actually, for a guy named Al Copeland, who at one point owned all the Popeyes in the world,

that was his his place. So he was building jet engines for that. So I got big into the jet engine

stuff. I was around that as a kid. I mean, obviously riding their bikes, stupid things like that,

fixing them. But I was hell bent on boats. That was the thing I wanted to do what my dad was doing

in Louisiana, Louisiana. And what's what is the boat culture like? Where are they on the ocean

there? No, they're in Lake Pawnstrain. Okay, the stuff that my dad was doing, we're talking 50 foot

cat race boats 200 miles an hour. Yeah, I mean, my dad had speed records that weren't broken until

nine months ago, and he's been dead since 2008. So like there's there's a big speed history with

him and what he was doing. That's kind of where I got my start in. But you're putting jet engines

on boats. And like turbine in general electric T 55s, T 58s, because he started out doing

the unlimited hydroplanes. And that was back when Miami Marine Stadium was a thing that used

to race those out there and then hot went up to the northern lakes, you know, stuff up there.

So that was really where the speed kind of started. But I focused on that. And

um, my dad bought a boss horse. Oh, hey, I saw that in a 502 big block boss horse. And I saw that

and I was like, this is kind of cool. I don't know what the hell it says. I didn't care about

motor cycles at the time. And I remember it went from that to him having the boss horse dealership

in New Orleans. And one day I went into the shop, and his mechanic, like quit, like hell of this

mid day. I'm done. I don't want to do this shit. And I remember staring at the bike staring what

he did. My dad's gone. I don't know what's going on. I'm staring at this. I'm like, I think I could

fix this. Yeah. Meanwhile, I'm 15, 16 years old. And I ended up fixing it. It was actually just

a clutch vacuum booster wasn't anything too crazy. But I ended up fixing my dad's like, Oh, no,

you're done. Send me up to Dyersburg, Tennessee at 16 years old. I was the youngest certified

boss house technician in the world. So I started with that. And that's kind of where it started

to spiral down. So they were out of Dyersburg, Dyersburg, Tennessee. That's crazy. That's where

Booster Brad is based out of. Yeah, it's crazy that that that town's so kind of small in general.

But if you're in this motorcycle culture, then you know, yeah, okay. Of course,

of course, I never even thought about that. I haven't, are they still making bikes at all?

And I have kept up with it. I haven't seen one boss in Daytona in years. That's the only place I

ever see. When they come around, you know, oh, yeah, there's, I mean,

1300 pound, you know, zero six Corvette motor on two wheels with a two speed transmission on it.

Yeah. I mean, you drive that thing till the wheels fall off and half the stuff you need for it comes

straight out of auto zone. So it's great. Gotta go to the bike shop. Oh, Riley's. Oh, yeah, exactly.

But that's that's really how I got my start. And I still I had a slight interest in it. I started

doing stuff there. I started working at his shop. And it was still solely almost boats. He had the

bike thing as a, you know, front of house kind of thing. He had some a couple of the things that

he was doing there. But I kind of stuck with the boss all stuff for a little while. And then it

kind of progressed started building like little cafe racers and little scramblers, things like

that old busted bikes kind of just moved forward and through the runs with that. And then

I said, you know, this isn't what I want to do. Yeah, I like it. I enjoy it. But my goal is obviously

I want to I want to make some money. I want to get in the field where I can really do some stuff.

And I don't see this unless I'm on my dad's level of getting anywhere from it. So Katrina happened.

And after Katrina happened, I was like, you know, the hell that I was born in Miami.

I don't remember it. I don't know what it is. I'm going. There's nothing in Louisiana at that

point. So I packed up and left and went to Miami and I started, I stayed in a hotel and the guy

that ran the hotel literally was racing like CCS down there on sport bikes. So we got along,

started helping him, got a free stay, hung out there all the time. And then eventually my dad

got sick and moved the shop to Miami. And I ended up going back into that at the time.

Real hard to believe I was in school for biomedical engineering and working in kitchens.

Biomedical engineering. What is that? Like what is I know biomedical and I know engineering,

but where do they cross over? So that's, that's like, realistically, it's the future. My, my main

goal was nanotechnology and stuff like that. It was like in video games, like Metal Gear and

it's kind of getting into that kind of stuff, putting machines inside of you, stuff like that.

You're making stuff in the lab, putting it into a human being. Your link type shit.

It crossed over into that in the future, really. And I was doing that and my dad got sick. I dropped

out of school, dropped out of school and I ended up just saying the hell that it started messing

with the bikes. And at that point, it's kind of crazy, but it's where my first kind of link up

with Horger goes through. I met somebody in Miami who was looking for a boss house technician.

I got boss house reach out to me. You're the only guy out there that's a technician.

This guy just moved here from Germany. He's opening up a shop. He needs somebody because

we won't allow you to have a dealer unless there's so I ended up going there. And that ended up being

the next 10 years of my life. And he ended up having this place called House of Thunder in Miami

and we were pretty much one of the more dominant shops in Miami at the time we had cartel baggers

and then we had House of Thunder and that's that was it. That's where you win those places and

cartel baggers. Obviously, so House of Thunder was that kind of like bike sales as well as like

custom out the whole thing. Almost all customization at that point. He had bikes that were for sale,

but most of them were custom stuff that he built or stuff that came from Germany. That's for another

chat and stuff that was there. But predominantly it was all custom stuff. And back then in Miami,

it was really big wheel baggers. We were doing a lot of scramblers, dirtster kind of things. We

didn't even know what the hell they were at the time. It was just these scramblers style

sportors were building them left and right, started building Royal Enfields in the exact same

fashion. But we were really focusing on those kind of bikes and my heart was already just engine

wise. That was my thing. I just wanted to do that all the time. So it eventually just broke out to

where those bikes and that style kind of died because you know, it's fashion, whatever's in,

that's what's going on. The big wheel bagger thing. Actually, I'm not surprised it's still

going strong. That was just a fact that just never left. It's still going. But you know,

the Cafe Racers, the scramblers died out, started getting more into some more performance

things, more customization. And eventually that ended. That ended. I was starting to work on the

street at the time and I brought the evolution brand back out. And that was the thing that was

me trying to branch out on my own because I realized that House of Thunder, its time was,

it was over. Yeah. So there was some shifts in, you know, what was happening with

Eric who owned the place and what was going on. So it eventually turned into me working as

evolution. What was the shop? The guy's name? Eric? Eric Volf. Okay. I was trying to think

of all the Floridians I knew and the different things, but so what timeframe was that?

2010, 11, 12. It seemed like it seemed like I remember a lot of different shops like that.

And then it seems like the model for how those work shifted to become more like how

the bike exchange and Woodlawn and a lot of these other companies are doing it, where they're like

these off the showroom floor new. Also, we were just talking about Covington, where instead of like,

because Covington had the same thing where they were this all out shop, you can walk in,

have a bike built by one on consignment or something like that. But then it got to a point

where it made more sense to go buy a bunch of new bikes, build them, take them to the dealership

or take them to the bike events and have an offer the financing and whatever needed to be able to

get those bikes out of the out of the shop and into someone's hands. That seems to be the bike

or the shop model that's been around for quite a while for the bigger shops.

It was a big shift in all kinds of things at that time. Yeah. Or really, I mean, even a

culture shift completely at that timeframe. So it all kind of worked out. But I mean, at that

point, I went back to like street ranching kind of thing and just going back and forth.

And then I decided I was like, you know, I'm done with the whole street thing,

because I have at that time, I basically took on the entire House of Thunder clientele.

He was working out of a house, I was working out of the house and we're just those garage

techs for a little while. And then he left went back to Germany. And then at that point,

it's where I was realizing like, you know, I can't get new people, I can always stay with

the old crowd because they trust you. And that's the thing. You know, it's hard to get somebody

to come to you and be like, Hey, man, come, come check out my house. Like, I got my lifts in the

back. It didn't matter. I mean, out of a four car garage, it's like, I had a nice setup. But

so at the end of the day, you don't have that overhead, you don't have that security and that

customer coming to you for the first time is looking at you like, you know, what if my

shit gets blown up? Like, who's going to take care of this at this point? It's just some guy

working out of his garage. Don't even pay attention to the $100,000 of the tools there

because I don't care about that shit. Yeah, yeah. So I just got to the point where I was like,

you know, I'm going to I'm going to build something up. And I got involved with

funny enough, Corey that we were talking about. He opened up a shop with a guy in Miami. And I

another story all on its own, but that kind of fizzled out. And I was asked to kind of

replace and keep going and keep the traction up with that shop. And what that was doing,

I was involved with the guys that own urban helmets and dynamite crew and, you know, people

that you know, and you've seen it born free Texas back when it was first picking up.

And I was like, I got involved with that. And you know, I really appreciate that and what it did

for me. But at the end of the day, man, I was FXRs all day, FXRs, FXRs, FXRs, foot anything. It was

all owner stuff. Yeah, I was trying to pull out my own stuff, bring my own customers in. And it

was just a real closed doors kind of shop, which kind of I feel like is the reason why I am the

way I am as well with, you know, that I'm appointment only closed doors. I don't, I don't even like

being flashy about anything. I'm not big on the media. I'm doing it now. I just moved here. I need

to. So it got like that for a while. And I, you know, it was time to move on again. And moved on.

I got, I got involved with somebody. It was a good friend of mine. And we opened up the first

brick and mortar evolution because before it was something different. And I ended up dealing with

him for about a year. And then, you know, debts paid off on investor end. And I just kept moving

forward at that point. And at that point, you have, you know, we're M eights are coming out,

and we're having all this here. And I ended up at Harley for a while to actually learn the new

motors and kind of get the gist of what was going on there and, you know, back and going back into

the shop and doing that. But, you know, that was really the start of what I started doing. Yeah.

Where'd you like, did you go get like the dino jet training all that? Like how, how, what's all

that like? Oh yeah. So when I, when I bought the dino, that was like the first major thing. I was

like, you know, I got to set myself apart because there's not many people in Miami at the time that

had a dino. And yeah, I ended up going to two different schools. And then I ended up learning

from a couple of people in the car industry that taught me some, you know, different things.

They do way different things than the bike guys do. Yeah. The bike stuff's a little more cookie

cutter. The car guys get in deep there because they're, they're killing themselves for half a

horsepower and that extra, you know, 10th of a second. So I started learning from those guys.

The dino jet school and all that. I mean, really, it's kind of like how I see MMI. Yeah, it's really,

it's, it's the basics. It gives you a little bit of, you know, what's going on. Yeah, the foundation

of it, where I really started tweaking with the dino. And my first, I would say year, it was

really rough with the dino, because I got my personal bike in there. And my big thing was,

I can't stand how you go into a shop. And they go, Oh, yeah, put this SNS 475 in there. That's

what you do. That's, that's what you got to do. I can't stand that you cater your, your to your

customer. So if you come in and I watch you, you know, rip into the shop, I watch how you're

riding, I watch how your style, I watch your demeanor when you're coming in and you're talking

to me, I can kind of get a judge of, you know, your aggressive riding or your chill rider,

see the miles on your bike and see if your short distance, long distance, you know,

kind of get a feel for that. So I'm like, Okay, well, how do I cater to this customer

and not just be every shop that's like, Oh, here's this thing right out of the drag book. Here

you go. Let's just put this in this box in here. Yeah. Once that fits all kind of thing. Yeah,

I come from a generation where machine shops were still around to then machine shops started

to fade out where we used to be able to go in, you know, we do all these heavy modifications.

And now it comes to the point where we're just slapping on parts that came in a box and UBS

truck. So it's like that I hated that. I don't want to be a part of that. I was part of a jet

engine shop at one point. So it's like, I want to do something a little bit different. Yeah,

at least, you know, be that different guy that goes, Hey, let me cater to this to you. Oh,

how do I learn that my own personal bike, my personal bike, that thing has been beat down with

every single cam I possibly could, I would stay at the shop all night long, throw a different cam on

it, dino the thing, learn it, got to figuring it out. And I kept doing it. There was times when

I'd have three different cams in my bike in the same day. And it was just every chance I would

get, I would be modifying, modifying, modifying, probably pretty good at adjusting push rods. Oh,

yeah, it's bad. It's bad. I don't even bother with it anymore. It's close, close, close. All right,

bye. You know, done. It's just it's there. But yeah, that's what I was doing a lot. And that was

where, you know, people started to notice it's like you can go somewhere and not just be sold

the same damn kit everybody has. Yeah, obviously, different cultures, different places. They love

psychorama here in Texas. Miami, you don't hear that. That's something that's very different. I mean,

Miami is big on star. So it's like they have their own things that they do. But my goal was to learn

all these figure out what it was and kind of just deep dive into it. And I use my own bike for my

own R&D. I did that for years. I kept changing the motor to modifying things and give it to the

machine shop, deck this change this cutthroats on here and just kept going back and forth with

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Well I feel like on the point of like you're saying about the cam stuff and

it becomes whoever's pushing it right like for here you know we have D&D is in our backyard here

and they were pushing the redshift 468 when the inmates first came out and it seemed to get pretty

good numbers. I had came from on my twin cam days always loving the wood stuff personally you know

triple seven sounded good felt good um so I think the cam thing is and then I remember hearing about

the the star was it star 30 30 or something like everybody started talking about that or the woods

xe 22 cam or something like that xe the xd pretty different cams there but they're still they're

ass kickers for what they are yeah but I mean I feel like I mean think about it like where we've

been talking about this all day as we've been hanging out um it's where you get the information

from now is where we kind of like where it where it lives in us if of course if if all of our buddies

at bike night are going to get the 47 you know 475 cam from sns is that what it is 475 I you

understand there's a lot of numbers to remember I don't even sometimes I don't even know my own phone

number I mean uh but that 475 with a certain exhaust and it just fucking sounds so throaty

at idle when you're not actually riding it um I'm the first person to say like guys bash the

shit out of screaming eagle when you use all screaming yield products on a bike yeah it's

actually really good if you link all their stuff together that's the thing companies that design

air cleaners exhaust cams they design them in unison you don't hear sns going oh yeah we put

in a fueling cam in our sns bike today no they design these things to work with their stuff like

yeah okay the screaming yield stuff it's quiet it's very compliant but they do a good job at what

they do when combined together yeah I'm actually you know because I'm I'm going to be running the

fueling I forget the number again uh cam on the on the gen 2 road glide and I I want to make my

own exhaust but I'm starting to kind of feel like man like their shit's all dialed in for each other

like you just said yeah and I'm actually kind of like feeling like maybe I'm a backtrack and

just go with one of their systems just to kind of like have the whole package together I mean you

can but now there's that that's the problem with the industry with that kind of stuff is there's

so many choices yeah and that's that's where you know all these guys end up with the exact same setup

because people are scared to give them options you shouldn't be scared to give the customer

options you should be scared to give the customer 20 options because then they don't know what the

do I think as a consumer there's there of these products are expensive yeah you know and so you

don't want to it's not like even for a helmet as a comparison you know you buy a helmet online and

you don't know if it fits right so you're kind of hesitant about doing it till you try one on or

whatever of course well you don't get to try on a cam and exhaust I mean you did you know for the

research purposes right and so like it's good to get that knowledge like you did so that you can

pass that on to customers and give options like you're basically you know you what you're laying

on the table now and saying you know so I get it but yeah it's difficult if you know that all your

buddies are running the 475 cam from sns and they're they're riding with you every weekend everything's

good it's all you know what I mean now sns lifters now that's another conversation I mean it also

depends on who it is I mean that's another thing I mean we both know a story about other lifters

being in bike and you know you got to change this stuff people don't realize they go out and they

beat the shit out of their bikes and if the manual says you know 10,000 miles change your shit change

your shit man yeah yeah like that's that's kind of how it is but you know that's the same thing if

you change the oil in your bike you maintain this bike the thing will last forever I have a bike in

a shop right now and it's it's absolutely insane it's um the founder for the leaders in san antonio

this fucking bike is a 2020 with 100,000 miles on it damn and it's just trucking along no problem no

issues no clicking no clacking nothing so it's 2020 she's got a hundred k on it yeah that's it yeah

take care of your shit it takes care of you I mean the same thing I mean you think about it you

know at the time that we spend on the damn choppers I mean if you really sit there and take care of

it yeah every now and then it punches you in the throat my buddy this morning literally just got his

FXR dialed in it's like just sure the main shaft off so it's like you know it happens it's old it's

aged it happens well it's like the metal could be just you know worn the fuck out you know to meet

and those other things oh yeah of course I mean but we have tolerance issues with the new motors

constantly yeah that's a big problem half of these motors you crack them open bone stock and you

find out you got you know 7000 to run out and the bike was 600 miles on it and Harley's like

we'll fix it at 12 it's like oh great you know I can't put anything in it at that point that

sucks SNS tolerance is a lot less than that yeah so it's like what happens we build the motor we

snap the throttle we throw it out even more yeah that's part of it I mean I think that of course

we're playing with toys this isn't daily transportation yeah that's the thing I feel that

a lot of people forgot about these bikes this is this is jet ski yeah it's a recreational vehicle

but we use them as you know this is our everyday vehicle for a lot of people yeah it might I can't

even say it might be cheaper they're not cheaper you can buy cars for nice cars for the price this

is some of these bikes brand new now I mean you get a nice car for a full cam kit cam chest

huh yeah yeah yeah a stage two upgrade is a nice accurate TL 06 still it's got a hundred

feet thousand miles but it's got a couple dents couple dings maybe the paint's faded on the hood

but you know it's a Honda it'll go for it's got you yeah of course yeah that's all I was always

telling them like a lot of the whole the performance bagger homies I was like man

you know for what you guys are spending on some like a swing arm sometimes you can get you an

FXR and like have another bike project and maybe I feel like let me ask you this I think every man

needs to have three motorcycles what's your number and why you know I I could I could say that to

do if you got the space or if you're one of those guys if you're allowed to um yeah I think

realistically you need to travel bike 100% you know like that is maybe you got a cam and it may

be you got bars exhausted so the basics which even when you think about the basics now you're

like oh I'm cranked in yeah but I mean that's the thing you need something with the basics on it to

make you happy and be reliable and not have any issues not even a question even though they do

have their issues I feel like you need a bar hopper or a hot rod 100% of sorts and I feel

like every person that is deep into this this whole world of ours you need that clap dot FXR

you need something to beat you the fuck down and put you in your place yeah because that bike's

gonna do it to you that bike is going to make you appreciate everything that you do to it

and just that that changes things a lot I mean that I can agree with a three I mean I have

seven now but um shop owner it happens I get it um you come across good deals yeah but I mean the

funny thing is my my daily is I got the fat Bob that is just overly built overly obnoxious and

you know what I love to ride that bike but you know when you're up in Tennessee and you're in

first gear the whole damn time it gets a little annoying because it's just so disgustingly choppy

anywhere else and you know I I've got the the heritage which you know I'm not going to go ride

that around and show off to my friends that's the one thing it's like all right wife let's go let's

let's go for a ride through the hills let's do something that's just the that's my basic bike I

mean yeah I'm not gonna travel with this a little older but now definitely take it around town and

then I mean you saw me the last time you know I'm on the gas gas so that's the toy that's my

little hot rod I mean even though the fat Bob is too but it's still a showpiece at the end of the

day yeah I mean at least the fat Bob's got miles on it I'm like a lot of bikes that I know of that

are built out like that but it's like you know I also get made fun of for that too because the

miles are all in the mountains somewhere they're all North Carolina or Tennessee somewhere and

everybody's like you you trailer out of Florida Florida sucks to drive yeah I trailer straight

to Atlanta if you're in Miami if you're in Miami and you're going north it's 400 miles if you're

going west it's 800 miles so bad I mean I believe me I know I know I clocked 36,000 miles moving

here from Miami so I know they're in back yeah I know that trip all too well and I know from

Baton Rouge to you got out of Beaumont you hate your life on those roads at least that's bad

right now I think four bikes is just too much personally because I'm sitting at four bikes

right now and it's it's not because I'm balling it's just it just happened that way

but I do have everything from I got a shovel all the way up to Gen 2 M8 so I got Twin Cam

Evo shovel head and then the M8 and I tell you what man like each one of those bikes

feels different that's kind of the of course like all my bikes I want to be able to travel on

but I want them to feel differently so anytime I was to take one differently on a trip

it would be a different experience yeah you know or or a nightmare yeah I mean it could be

100% I mean you got the shovel you know how it goes it's just yeah I'm actually going to ride it up

to uh Oklahoma City tomorrow that's my first long trip on it so I'm like we'll see if I make it you

know I mean I need I gotta I'm gonna ride it to California in like two and a half months so

you have to do something so I need to do some trips to see I need to do some like it's kind of like

you know I need to get a couple loops going a little bit further and coming home you find out

all the little kinks and then get it yeah like I've got most of the road kinks figured out I

need to figure out what the the long day on the bike does yeah you know how what what's gonna

rattle off when you're doing 300 400 miles in the day versus what's rattling off going back

and forth to Dallas you know what I mean besides yourself rattling off of it I mean for the most

part man I'll be honest with you man like I I think I was more like building the bike and everybody

talking about how bad rigids and all this stuff is I was so like not scared but I was like I was

looking for the pain I was looking for it and it's not there I think the difference in my opinion

is that that's a slow ass shovel head with a four speed in it yeah you're cruising so I'm cruising

it I'm not fucking I'm not on an m8 gen 250 horsepower motorcycle mobbing through the streets

yeah you know I'm saying you're not 120 miles an hour or one way for 600 miles so I feel like the

the thought process behind and and I'm saying this from a hypocrite standpoint because I used

to be this way is it like every bike needs to be this way you know like back in the day before I

was big in the Harley stuff it was like we would stretch out sport bikes and you know it started

out a drag race and then that became stretch sport bikes was the custom look right but then everybody

that did stretch them would like you can't ride those things I'm like I rode it here I can't ride

the way you ride your bikes yeah but I rode this bike here and I enjoyed every minute of it so I

think that like that mentality is like it happens on motorcycles because you might have one bike

and it does everything you want it to do and you can't justify that vehicle a soft tail right

that's beach cruisers weird position whatever but you like it but you just can't justify it in your

in your uh you know your stable or whatever I apologize to all my new customers and new brunfels

all their heritage is out there I think I I think heritage isn't and like the the

evil in and twin cam soft tails right now they're so cheap I'd I'd be buying them up

you know it's cool to come here and see the style difference yeah because that's one major thing it's

like I'm I'm like even the vehicle a thing it's like new to me yeah I'm like I'm used to the

and it's like for a while I thought it was the same thing it's not because that that's the low

rider that's that's the peak that's a high end of that style it's flashy as hell but I mean I find

so many of them that are here now and it's it's like you got to appreciate the work that these guys

but I do some sick stuff I got I got a guy that comes into the shop now and the bike it's like

yes it's not a style I can I can roll with it's not I love it it's cool it's cultural appropriation

if you do it geez yeah you know let's let's start knocking on white guy and edit and then um

but the thing is with that this guy has more money in engraving yeah on a heritage than I've got

guys with engines that are built on performance baggers yeah and it's like the detail that goes

into these things is absolutely insane I admire that because that custom culture is I feel fading

more into that box bolt-on of what it really has become over the years of course it's it's the same

thing as like who the hell rebuilds a starter anymore nobody does I can rebuild a starter I can

get the kit for cheap as dirt but I can get you the starter for a hundred dollars more than that

and it's got a warranty on it so it's like that's kind of pushed that culture I don't know if I'm

equipped to go down this rabbit hole but I've been watching enough YouTube videos to kind of

justify a little bit of what what I'm about to say is I think most of like what you're talking about

from being the custom to being a box thing is just the results of capitalism and I'm not against

capitalism I can agree right I'm not against it but you can't be against it we have buckies here

but I the thing is that like if you want to be a brand and be able to afford to exist in today's

economy or world you have to find a way to make money it's it it literally if you think of the

subscription model that every one of these programs are going to instead of selling me the program

every three years for three grand you can sell to me for 75 a month and it you know what I mean it

checks out the same but now they they they have like it just makes sense to go that way if you

want to do a business and everybody's gonna make enough money for this business to exist

I mean you've seen it now like some cars are doing it to where like you pay a subscription

for like features on a car the car comes with all the features but I think there's some German

shit to be honest with you what are you talking about there's some shit that comes right out of

austin here that's the same thing that I don't I don't buy electrics I don't like talking about

yeah I don't either I admire it but it ain't ready for my brain yet but yeah a hundred percent you

have to pay for features for that thing to go oh for real like there's there's a minimal version

of it but also there's the you know hey come to my come to me at the grocery store over here

that's all paid for well I get the concept of it I get the that aspect of it but I guess where

you're going what you're coming from and what I think I'm trying to coincide with is uh or

cosine on is that when you would go get a z28 Camaro versus a rs Camaro versus an s and s

Camaro that was a trim package that came with something that you couldn't just activate you

you know what I mean and it felt cool to oh you know like if you had a z28 it's pretty sick

or when you would actually go under the dealership and I say I want this this this and this and this

and not just walking down you know that's what's on the lot all right let's go yeah so I mean I

think that building custom bikes I think that's why choppers never really go away they just kind

of you know ebbs and flows with the culture they keep modifying and you can't get the damn part so

you have to keep custom making this stuff and that's where that that will always be there with that

and that's a hundred percent I agree with you there well I feel like the the the once again rise of

fxr's is kind of a result of that like because don't be wrong like a performance bagger with

all these box parts like you're talking about they're they're sick they're dope and they fucking do

what they're supposed to do and they the job is done the bike looks good it performs it does

everything it's supposed to do it is hard to find those nuanced things that you can create that's

your own outside of like the way you coat things like paint powder coaster like that right so when

you get an fxr you feel like there's just a little bit of uniqueness to it maybe it's maybe you're

with a file like making that that p.m brake caliper work on these this front end there's nothing you

want works on it you know yeah no a hundred percent a hundred percent and I feel the fxr definitely

falls into that custom chopper culture it always will I mean you know and also the like cool stuff is

what like taste makers make things cool yeah not not by by the not like uh it's a it's a

subsequent of it or it's a byproduct of like people like this shit so they they go that way and then

the culture falls behind and then they kind of make it not cool anymore and then they go over here

and then the culture comes over there and it's like a circle right yeah um yeah I don't know I don't

know where I was going with that but it's all good it's all good so when you were in Miami and you're

you know when you first started evolution they're like what what did the business look like like

what was the customer base the the kind of things that you had coming in and you were kind of pushing

out so you gotta look at where I came from with House of Thunder um and that was high end

German that whole thing um so that was like that clientele kind of flocked to that idea as most of

us do you know we all kind of stuff were they building uh there was all the thing is the building

that I actually got to witness because there was more stuff that we were doing where we were

doing the scramblers the bobbers we were doing what was in at that given time and doing a lot of

engine work um but at that time it was just evos and twin cams like crazy but that's really what it

was as far as the custom bikes in that German aspect in the German drag style thing a lot of

that stuff came over from Germany I didn't really know too many the origins of it or what a lot of

it was some of it was kind of mysterious to me which I found out later years that now I know why

but it's like there was this whole thing of you know we have this product this is what we do but

in all the years that I was doing that we never really built anything like hardcore like that

and I mean American culture doesn't really flock that direction kind of like you're saying with

the the v rods and the breakouts it's not an American thing it's really not they're cool in

their own sense they can be built out really awesome the German drag style it's one of my

favorite bikes yeah that style is big for me when it's coming from like you know jet boats and

fucking you know boss houses yeah I mean that that's the thing with with that culture when I grew

up and I'm staring at you know builders you know American builders like Jesse James and people

like that I love what they do and they've got some badass products but my eyes were always on

that weird German shit that was going on and it was very different from the American builds

because it's kind of funny I watched Fred Kotlin release bikes and stuff like that as a kid which

you know it's funny it kind of comes around into my life again you know all these years later

where I see this but that was a big thing that I really liked but the choppers were never really

my thing that was a bike style that I loved I admired I appreciated but that wasn't what really

got me into it I'm more into I like old stuff with an insane amount of technology

so yes so it's like I want to see you know that's why I do a lot of FXRs now

and it kind of gives me that sense of it because we're putting all these modern parts

all these old hunks of garbage which realistically I don't care I'm one of those guys and everybody's

going to bash the shit out of me over it because I'm going to say FXR is not the best motorcycle

in the entire world it was definitely an amazing design the bike was phenomenal for what it was

but right now in this day and age it's a turt we have to spend we're leaving fantastic we have spent

how much money you spent on your FXRs and there you go and it's like why I had to upgrade the

suspension I had to upgrade this I had to change this I had Jesus we're talking about 30 40 year

old vehicles of course yeah you don't see a stock yeah I mean that's that's fine that's awesome

now it's not even like originally what it was except the triangle that everybody knows is that

FXR kind of thing I mean a modern day soft tail whoops an FXRs ass any day in every way shape

and form suspension performance handling chassis everything there is better at the time when the

FXR came out and that was yeah revolutionary for that stuff that was we got a touring platform

on this narrow ass bike that we can just whip around it's lightweight we got the power it's

a badass bike and then you know finally we get now the modern guys now are like oh yeah look at

this thing you have that nostalgia effect with it yeah which is a big thing but I like to build

them as much as I also hate to build them because I also know the extent of what they do to you

as somebody that's working on them and you know this as well it's like oh yeah I did this and this

and this and I did this and I went out for a test ride and then this broke and then it's like

it's a constant little bit of a nightmare there I don't I don't think that FXRs I think FXRs are

right a passage for people that want to be custom bike builders mechanics things like that because

it will teach you how to work on everything and partly partly because a lot of those things need

to be replaced and sometimes yeah you are in the primary and you're fixing the primary chain

and clutches and stuff and it's like bro like you got to get the mentality of well I'm in here might

as well do this stay do everything yeah do everything but then let me let me inspect all

this starter jack shaft stuff make sure all that stuff's good and like you know it's just

I get it but I mean maybe to your point of like the reason why they're so popular now is because

not everybody has it yeah of course you know so there's there's 40 softels in the parking lot

but somehow everybody's going to look at the clap dot FXR because it's the one different thing there

it also takes a particular person to be able to handle that bike as well that's not that's not a

bike that you know everybody's going to get on and be like oh yeah this is my first bike yeah

let's not do that you need to be able to understand that you have to be patient with it

you have to realize that starting it is completely different too you get these guys that just jack on

that thing and they're like oh yeah let's go let's go let's go and you got it's bass caskets go out

yeah it's it's not that it's a vintage car at the end of the day kind of thing you know like

it's it's that old Mustang that's been sitting in the barn and here you are restoring it and

making it to this former glory or better which everybody does now 100% I will coast on what

you said that's exactly when you have new people that buy old bikes but they want to treat them

as new modern things they usually have a bad time yeah you you have to kind of get to understand

where you're getting the reason why I think a lot of us are drawn to the old machines is just for the

kind of the simplicity yeah in a lot of ways yeah the nostalgicness and the uniqueness and

it takes a little bit more than just a wallet to be able to own those things yeah and sometimes for

us broke folks you know I can't beat you with a wallet but I can start this bike and I bet you

can't you should see the faces on all the people that I know that go in they get them and they find

them sitting somewhere and then they start them up and they call me and they're like I just bought

this bike and you just dump two quarts oil on the ground it's like yeah yeah yeah welcome to the

gotta get all that wool out of the that that case breather yeah okay but it's still it's

that's one of those bikes that I feel that it's got its quirks it's got its moments where it's

like as somebody that you know brings these things back to life or builds them into this

monstrosities that they are now where it's just like they're crazy before it's now so

realistically it's it's one of those bikes you don't give a chopper to somebody as their first

bike you don't do that you don't pull out a panhead and go here you go man you that guy will

never get on a Harley ever again I keep forgetting about that because every time like a friend comes

around I want them to ride my chopper I'm like oh whoa it's a jockey shift no front break like

it's not not everybody can just jump on that has the coordination to be able to make it all work

yeah it's like you ever put a drum brake through a puddle man yeah tell me how that break feels

yeah tell me how that feels like I had a bike at the shop there's change for fork stops the whole

handlebars will wrap itself right around I like that look though I think it looks bitchy and it's

just you know forever the the bathroom bike but you know that's the thing about those vintage bikes

I mean I do a lot of them I like them I've got quite a few in the shop yeah here and there and

everywhere and they're fun so when you left that shop and you started doing your own thing

you were still kind of taking care of those customers like you were talking about

in those like more yeah cafe racer you know scrambler type bikes yeah I mean a lot of that stuff

and even some of it was crazy because there was a lot of German style bikes because of this guy had

stuff coming like customers coming wanting that stuff too I had high-end clientele I mean I've

got a guy that I've been building bikes for for years that just knocks out all these crazy you

Thunderbike replicas and stuff like that that we've done and yeah I took care of them and the same

when I backed out of the other shop that we started up where that's where I really started

digging real deep in FXRs because he owns several Yoneves FXRs so it's like I'm sitting here at

least I'm renting on power plants and that are just like we know this is good we know this is

good not the guy that's like I found this in Georgia and you know this abandoned for 25 years

come check it out but that was the thing so my first real deal FXR experience is you know

power plant stuff so it's like this puts a smile on my face I got something that's cool I love the

job or influence on that yeah so that was a big thing for me so that's I feel like the only reason

I continued messing with the FXRs and then I realized in Miami nobody wants to touch them either

nobody nobody wants to touch those bikes so that was that was kind of a weird place like

I've never heard of Miami when I'm thinking about the vintage chopper world you know the

things like what Yoneves is from there's not really a scene down there no no no that that

seems way too west coast for that I mean the thing is that's where you're getting up to

northern Florida where it's kind of like you're getting more into the honky territory where it's

like a chopper boys up there you know that from downtown camp out all that's Florida Georgia line

baby yes exactly that's just a style that's around there Miami it's money bougie speed

dicksling and that's what my bike I wanted to match my Lambo kind of shit uh not gonna say I

haven't done that several times but that's that's the thing that's what that Miami culture really

brings I mean when you think about Miami most people think about race boats offshore cocaine

parties strippers clubs you know that alligators alligators now crocodiles and alligators which

is really fucked um people out here hit deer's go hit an alligator tell me how you feel about that

it's just scare the shit out of you if it's not dead you might die anyway here in Texas when you're

ready to level up your ride there's only one dealership that I go to and that's cowboy Harley

Davidson of Austin whether you're looking to jump on a new 2026 model or a certified pre-owned Harley

that's ready to go cowboy has you covered genuine Harley parts expert service by factory trained

technicians finance options all from the dealership that I have trusted to buy my last five motorcycles

in the past 10 years swing by or hit them up at cowboy harley austin.com and don't forget cowboy

hosts weekly events so follow them on instagram at cowboy hd austin to get real-time updates

in one split second your ride can turn into a fight for your life your bike and your future

that's when you want law tigers the motorcycle lawyers to have your back they're not just attorneys

the riders real ones they've been in the wind they understand it they know the risks they fought

for thousands of injured riders across the country to get the compensation they deserve

1-800 law tires needs to be the first call you make they will get you on the right path with free

case evaluations 24-7 call law tigers before the insurance company starts spinning their wheels

again 1-800 law tigers or hit up lawtigers.com to get on the right path and give them a follow on

instagram at law tigers and once again 1-800 law tigers the first call you make but that's that's

the thing that culture still is there i just don't feel like it's home base miami i feel like miami

is a lot of international culture there so the style is kind of odd we have so many different

people from so many different countries they all want really nice fancy shit but the styles are

just it's weird it's a melting pot of that culture and it's just i don't know that's the thing like

when i was doing scramblers and stuff like that now we're doing some high-end scramblers and stuff

i did it with dinas yeah which is really wild to see but um you know i kept on with that stuff

because that was basically the change in the times and the big wool bagger thing just really didn't

hit with me and at the time we had cartel there so it's like that's like that'd be like me going

to arizona like i'll die out there there's too many people that are doing performance stuff in

arizona it's like plant me in phoenix yeah it's every other block where was eddy trotta was he miami

you receive fort lauderdale fort lauderdale okay so close yeah but that thing is it's not really

there a lot of the guys that you see with those kind of bikes are you know they're older guys that

that's that's a thing they bought it when it was super popular when it was you know 2000s the occ

days when it really started ramping up and that's that was it now they're the problem is those guys

have those bikes and they're down there trying to sell these bikes for $50,000 since like buddy it's

$5,000 bike now if that i mean everybody knows the lick has been lately in the last like maybe

10 years is to find those old big dog choppers with oh yeah you know six speed transmissions

and sns 113s and 124s take those and rip them out and build your fxr with them exactly of course

of course sell the rest of stuff to a dreamer that didn't get to live the uh the chopper life in

04 a little kid starter bike back to custom chrome days like oh who was talking about

yeah so you're building those bikes and then like the fxr you know because you were the guy

fucking with fxr's that opens up like at least there's some place we can take all our bikes

are these fxr's in miami like a lot of them there for that so you've dealt with a lot of evo stuff

yeah hmm is that why you call yourself evolution no not at all not at all i'm not even gonna get

into the name and why it's that that's that's for a few shots um nothing to do with that motor

nothing to do with the motor i do love the motor but i will say in milwaukee it's just a new version

of it yeah i know that probably offended you too no i i love dudes i love the way it's an upgraded

evo it really is it's a modern day evo which is sweet but you know that that brown bike is a fully

built balanced stock size evo with the evi 27 cam and i fucking love riding that thing it feels so

good and i mean is it as powerful as the m8 or even the twin cam no it just it's got its own

feel it's got its own feel that's that's the thing it's just you know i got a lot of guys that

were building twin cams in miami and they're all like you can't keep up with anybody but it's like

you have a whole different animal yeah this is a whole different style of bike it might be that

exact same bike but at the end of the day you're driving something completely different it's got

like you said it's got that feel it's got that vibe it's got that culture attached to it whatever

it may be yeah and no i i get it there's there's a bike for everybody and there's that style and

the differences between those styles the school i like brad style bikes style it's like not many

people really dig i mean that's one of the things that i you know house of thunder when i was doing

that that was like something we got known for is we had a soft tail and we put with his jeep

tires on it and it was really funny because everybody's looking at us like the hell do you do

this for this is nuts they put an old indian gas tank on it it's like one gallon gas tank we're

stopping to fill the thing up every 40 fucking miles but it was just a cool thing and now everybody

has those kind of like old bikes that old style that vintage brad style where you're just kind of

sitting in it kind of like a narrowed beach bar yeah but you know there was a lot of knockoffs of

that design that was done that was one of the things that was a notable thing with that shop

because i guess he realized that that chopper scene kind of wasn't in miami it really just didn't

hit here because it like i said it's a it's too much of a melting pot there's so much

shit going on there and too many different styles so yeah that style seems like it would fit better

in LA like the whole you know like a bike exchange is that wait that's this place right

no not bike exchange uh the shed

woodshed woodshed no not woodshed what's that fucking it's they have the place in europe or

london and in uh no that's in orlendo that's in orlendo tell me about LA uh yeah god damn

what's on tip my tongue i'm gonna get cussed out for not remembering it's the bike shed right the

bike shed yeah that's right this is the bike shed yeah i mean you go in there it's like it's a catch

all be all you know it's like it's a dice magazine kind of vibe you know what i mean which i dig it

it's that modern day hipster thing going on they got all that vintage nostalgia which is awesome

it's super cool that's a nifty thing i'm actually surprised there's nothing like that here that i've

found so far maybe up here it's here oh it's definitely here and it's big and awesome it's just

uh it's you gotta know where to look yeah you know what i mean um yeah so like you're building

on stuff out there and like how long were you out there doing that with the evos and the the

fxr's and building motors and stuff i mean realistically i mean the conception of evolution

and all that so 16 to basically now i literally just left i came out here um so that was big but

obviously i had the other shops and the other things i was involved with and i was all doing

similar things the fxr's weren't popular when house of thunder was around they got more popular as

the time progressed and you know i think the start scene really did a lot for the fxr culture

itself and you know those guys digging them out of the barns and realizing you can really rip the

shit out of these yeah i mean it it definitely it helped put them on the map to the parts of the

country that weren't really hip to it right you know the the east coast north northeast and like

west coast obviously the dinas were all overpriced they were already hot and them being it's a price

point where you look at an old 2001 dinas like 20 grand what are you out of your mind then you go see

this you know barn fine $2,000 fxr and like all right i'm gonna build it and it's kind of how i

feel that it happened so that didn't i really feel that culture really hit miami until i feel like

right before covid i would say 18 19 it kind of started really kicking in and that was something

that happened over there because obviously you know west coast travels east and we did a in 17

no the beginning of 2018 we did a at ace cafe we did a like the first performance meet at for

Daytona at ace and i was on my gold fxr and then my first performance back right i had a buddy here

ride with me down there and due to it was pretty dope because a lot of the fxr dudes like cut rate

and everybody and and chris harry from up north like a lot of people came to it was pretty it's

pretty dope but then like i said we were at ace cafe it was sick and then i never saw any of them

for the rest of Daytona because it was like pockets of shit yeah but that culture is also central

northern florida that doesn't go down south oh it really doesn't you don't see that down there

you can't find the bikes there either and that's the other thing it's like my swamp i mean i guess

but if you really think about like the usable land down there this like neighborhoods and

cities and shit it's not that much no i mean i'll tell you i mean what what's like the penance itself

is what like a hundred something miles wide if that's not much at all yeah it's like between

dallas and weiko with hour and a half you're across yeah it's done it's over and 15 alligators

that scare the shit out of you later i've never seen an alligator yet i've ridden through alligator

alley bullshit uh all i've ridden all over the place i even like look like i'll pull over like

when i stop a gas station i look for ponds because they say everybody water has something in it

bullshit i don't ever i see iguanas like a motherfucker down there yeah that's bad i mean

they might as well be alligators as violent as those fuckers are yeah especially with those

cold front they had over there that was so bad that was so bad i had so many people out here

like messaging me like is this real yeah yeah they fall out of the streets and those those

talents they'll hit you on the way down it hurts those things are nasty nasty the creepy thing is

nobody bothers to tell you all the ones you see load up in the back of the truck somebody is going

um yeah that's so what what would you say was really like the the the driving force to make you

you know to push you out of there to come here not to say that there was something bad there or

something you know what i mean just like what was it i mean i'm sorry it's kind of boring

but it's important it was more family than anything true um i had obviously been there 20 years

been established there for all that time and it's just um there was a lot of things going on i would

i would go out to Daytona and Holger and i would joke about you know hey let's let's leave one day

and we got you know at least we know each other over there wherever we go and you know there were

some ideas thrown around and then died out fizzled out and then Daytona last year really made some

serious changes and uh the thing that really got me to this point was i had a daughter and uh that

really really fucked me up because i was like i don't want to raise my daughter here my son at

the time is eight years old and um i just saw the the crap that he was going through and i just

kind of like triggered me to my past i grew up in New Orleans so it's like i had a pretty crappy

school experience there and it's like you know i see that and the kids were really the driving

force of i don't want to be here anymore yeah and um never in a million years would i have expected

i'd be in texas the stepping foot in this state really like kind of blew my mind because it's not

at all what i ever expected i mean i remember coming home and being like wife we're out we're

going this is gone and i just remember fuck no i'm not going i'm not going to death she's from

phoenix yeah i'm not going back to the desert i'm not going back to the desert like hop in the car

this isn't desert this is different hill country is like it's all a little pocket of strange texas

this doesn't like belong in what my mentality of texas really was i mean okay i'm from louisiana

i'm next door neighbor i didn't know any better i'm just sitting here i remember my first time

in arizona i'm like what the hell do you cactus forest near sudona what the hell i thought it was

just like one lonely cactus in the desert yeah i got this weird idea of what texas is and i came here

and you know it was like the family structure that's going to be great here the move it's a scary

thing i've been established for many years there that was the thing i have clientele base that

still are telling me off for leaving and it's just that was the thing that's what really started it

and you know hogger and i talked about it or good friends and he's like you know if you're

serious about it well yeah let's go check this this place out and we flew out here and it's just

man it it just every dot connected it just made sense every little detail of just my friendship

with him and coblin and you know the family dynamic wanting to get out of miami everybody

want to yes when you're in miami the the first place you think of moving is like okala you move

up north a little bit and it's just like even that sucks yeah it's just like that's not it's not

what i'm looking for it's not what i want for the family i mean i'm i'm in a destination where it's

like i i feel like i'm home here and it's like i've always kind of had that aesthetic that style

and it's just like hey you know now i got a damn cowboy hat and it's just like this is just i like

it here yeah i didn't expect that at all i didn't expect the culture here to be as big as it is i

mean i understand i'm in hill country i'm in the mecca for riding in yes central texas area

so when i came here mainly family based and you know i thought the business would be okay

i'm a motorcycle shop there's bikes everywhere yeah as long as i got heat a little bit of rain

or no rain i'll survive yeah it is what it is i might not be doing the super fancy things that i

thought um that i was doing in miami but it was just kind of like why the hell not why not most

people they live in the same place they were born yeah i've been in so many different places i've

seen you know things i i was in new orleans i was in ashore north carolina i lived in philadelphia

for a short period of time it's just like i've been around i'm ready for a change and the move

was very rapid um violent to say honestly the way it happened and how quickly it was yeah and i

came here scared to death and um the response the culture the people the people that i've met here

and just like the local influence and it's just there's a culture here that is really good for

the motorcycle scene and i'm never in a million years expected to find that we have good hospitality

that's another thing that's another thing it's just like

like uh when i first moved here and well i guess i hadn't even officially moved here i i got the

house yeah i'm i trailered everything here myself i just literally like bob trailer started going

back and forth stupid idea i don't want to hear it and um we go back and forth he's like you could

do this a better way i know i know um but that was the smartest way for me at the time it wasn't

but it is what it is a lot of shit happened and made it more difficult but i remember i pulled

up to the house one night and i'm unloading things i saw my neighbors out there and they

kind of waved to me and i was like you know i'm gonna go over there and say hi i lived in the

same house in miami for the past 10 years and i never talked to my neighbors never spoke to them

never waved never say hi everybody here says hi whatever i'm gonna go meet neighbors i mean i

didn't realize the guy was gonna tell me my house was haunted it just gets struck by lightning all

the time and that he goes by crazy uncle wane um but it's just that like hey like another guy would

pass hey come over it's a new neighbor come meet this guy and just like i said that hospitality is

like what is this i'm not use this miami i can open a door to your business walk right past you

and not say a word to you and that's the vibe a lot of people give there yeah is it now say hi

you walk into the door say hi to somebody you know you don't walk past somebody and be like

fuck off it's it's not like that here that was something that i'm not accustomed to my wife's

freaking out too it's like we've been in miami so long you just kind of get to that standoffish

like kind of vibe well i mean i think that might be also based on being in a big city

or a big a big nothing part of culture yeah you know because some cultures don't have

as much of that it's not against the grain for them to not be like uh you know yeah or they just

don't even know how to even communicate with the other people yes or no ma'am is that is that something

in uh that that exists in every culture in in one former fashion yeah of course i mean hell half

of miami i mean i have been right you get or if you don't speak if you don't wow now it's mostly

new york um but the thing is if you don't speak spanish you're in deep shit yeah because there's

people that come there and they don't okay well yeah i'm not learning english so that was a big

thing there so there was also that but i mean yeah i got that southern hospitality when i got here

and it was just like that's a culture shock to me moving here that's a good thing though this

isn't a bad thing these people are like appreciative of hey i came over i said hi i mean little did i

know crazy uncle wane was gonna knock on my door one day and just open the door and walk you know

60 feet into my house randomly my wife's like who the hell is this guy i wouldn't say that we all

do shit like that's a little weird for me but you know but i mean you did you i mean i guess once

you officially start calling him crazy uncle wane oh i love the guy he's gonna do what the

christmas lights out he's we do this on the street i'm like i'm sorry like i'm sorry

but i got that dude really wants to uh to be an hoa oh yeah oh yeah but it's like i got that a lot

here and then the the bike scene here was real strange for me and i had connections even before

connections that i didn't even realize that i had made when i was in miami i had a friend of mine

that lived in miami for a short period of time and then he went out to houston and he told me about

some block party that they were having out there a couple years ago and it's like amen um yeah i got

this thing going on over here i'm like bro give me the address i'll send you a bunch of merch and

shit like that little did i know i'm over at you know one of the sky's parties literally a couple

weeks ago in houston i didn't realize that was the people that i sent shit out to so it's like i

already had made some kind of like form of you know hey this is who i am out here i didn't

even really realize that and then the people that i had met along my journey because a lot of people

were were messaging me about the move and um i got a lot of traction very early on moving here

that i really didn't expect but i also realized i filled a need in that area it's kind of good

that you came when you did because i mean i think we all bumped into each other at the beginning

of december right yeah because it's kind of like even though you're established business like you

always want to come out in the season as a business and like if you were to move to your

on a late summer it i'm not saying it wouldn't work but it could have been a lot harder to

to like start to plant you know dig some roots in the ground you know what i mean and i mean i

mean oh of course of course and now it's like you know i've got that i'm the new guy on the block

kind of thing so i'm just coming over checking out the shop seeing what's going on or you know the

talk of who the hell is this guy like where'd he come from and it's just like i'm even things that i

announced with the shop just like deals and stuff like that it's like i guess it's just not common here

and then i guess my shop as well which i didn't realize the scale of it was going to be something

that was a little more unique here which i love this style of shop like that west coast small like

even like you're set up here it's this is what i want for a shop it's not what i've ever had but

you know that man cave vibe just this is fucking cool but i've just realized that the bigger your

shop the more places you store shit yeah yeah oh yeah yeah let's not talk about how many times it

took me to get my shop here yeah how many 30 foot trailer loads it took oh and all the shit that i

throw away when i left that i wish i didn't because so many people here asked me for things like that

you got this i'm like yeah there's like a there's just something like you need shop you know talking

about powerplant like that dude's bike shop is probably honestly it's the size of this room and

my little airbrush area that's he's milling uh he's fabricating one-off pieces building bikes all the

shit in that space oh yeah you know i've never been there but it looks like it's collected chaos and

it looks like the man's got everything there for anything he'd ever need and if not it's behind

that fender over there yeah exactly and it just breeds a lot of inspiration you know like sometimes

when you're your shop so perfectly it's surgical clean kind of thing i get it it it breeds can

like uh efficiency and cleanliness and that's all very important in the process of of doing this

stuff but man you gotta like you gotta surround yourself with the shit that inspires you because

of course just think about it like the way it was told to me a long time ago and i've tried to

like embody it is it's like your your bedroom when you're growing up like the the band posters the

games the videos the movies all that shit you are yeah it's like you gotta you're in this shop all

fucking day and you need to feel like you're in your your bedroom place you want to kick it you

know i've done a little bit of both i mean my my first shop all on its own was a 4 000 square foot

place actually not it looked like a formula one shop you need off the floor uh ten thousand

dollars worth of epoxy on the damn floor in that place i went balls to the wall to impress

and then when the lease ran out on that building my zoning actually changed so i ended up getting

kind of screwed out of that and i ended up moving i was like you know i'm gonna make it more on my

personality and then when i did that i realized i created more of a hangout yeah and the hangout's

cool my customers always end up being friends yeah that's that's one thing that i've realized and

they're hanging around and you know that's cool but there comes a time when it's like bro i gotta

get to work yeah which now i mean you see me here i've got a lot of stuff going on during the day but

a lot of people don't realize i'm i'm in the shop till two three four o'clock in the morning almost

every day yeah and it's like i work at night because i'm dealing with customers and all that like

we were talking about earlier with just all the back end stuff that people don't stop and think

about it it's like yeah i was doing my taxes over there yesterday and sitting on a computer and doing

all this paperwork and filing all this and sending that out and checking this and making sure and that

shipped and all that and it's like yeah i'm right now currently i'm a one-man show i got somebody

that you know at least i got help coming from held from all the way from conor now so i found

somebody that just checked off all the boxes and uh you know she's like hey i'm gonna come out here

three days a week and you know that's a hell of a stretch to come to the shop but the work i see

out of this this person is nice fucking great for what i've seen around here i've had a lot of people

coming in and out of the shop and it's just like i i need to be really you know exclusive of what

exactly i do and i found that with having my first shop to the second building that i had

having that pristine just holy shit when you walk in the door vibe of this is serious money

there's serious stuff going on here it's uh my second shop where i went from all white to just

straight black i mean i had tropical glitz flake and my epoxy on the floor like it was all green

and purple chameleon stuff going on it was crazy and it was who i was and my personality and then

i realized and i can't do that a hundred percent so now this one's the third variation of you know

my personality where it's a little blended to i've got the blend there and that's the thing

because you got to realize you know it's for me to be doing what you want me to do on your bike

i can't have that last shop style i can't necessarily have that first shop style i have to have this

working in this certain fashion for me to be streamlined on what i'm doing there yeah because

that's the thing i i want to do absolutely positively the best i possibly can on what i

am doing and i'm very meticulous about that yeah it's like i want that structure to be that way

so it's like when i came here i kind of changed it up a little bit again and i mean even i think

it's good to change and evolve you know um just kind of you know like i feel like i have to change

i i move around my shop a lot yeah like sometimes i basically move my toolbox from one wall to the

other back and forth depending on if this is a more paint heavy project or a more build heavy

project um and i don't know something just changing shit up makes me feel motivated to be in a space

you know i i learned that from uh the urban helmets guys there they had that power plant

kind of style shop yeah all the wood and reclaim things cool i mean i remember him putting yellow

fluorescent lights inside the place just gotta gave that west coast vibe and i remember walking

into the place and like what are you doing he's like i gotta change and you change the whole

shop around and it looked cool shit it was always just different but that was the thing it's like

every time somebody came in it oh it's kind of like retail you you gotta change shit up because

if they know you know that product is there what happens when they come in well shit they're gonna

walk around the entirety of the place they're gonna see that and you'd be like oh it's that feng shui

i gotta have you know that different vibe the old energy out new one in we changed up so i

completely understand that i do it from time to time as well i think it's a little difficult with

the structure of things that i have in there because it's like it's huge have you got to like go out

and ride or be a part of any like the west coast stuff or sturgis any of those and all i actually

surprisingly haven't never even been to sturgis i've spent my whole life based around in myrtle

beach that was nothing that i even cared for honestly it's just the wrong just like vibe up

in the mountains kind of thing i didn't like it i've done yeah myrtle beach is just like north

daytona yeah daytona too it's another one of those things it's like i guess living there so long

daytona is whatever to me yeah daytona is something that i feel everybody's gonna experience once

you have to 100 you gotta go there and and mingle and meet your people and then you gotta go there

and part of your ass off because that's what daytona is i like leesburg leesburg has always

been the thing that i've like and you know when they move rats all over there and show like that i'm

going on sport custom it's a lot quieter yeah and then you know even up to uh smoky mountain

bike week stuff like that i was there for the first years of that when it was kind of really not

much of anything and now it's becoming its own little thing up there too but yeah i've never

done the west coast stuff uh no born free sadly no mama tried sadly like all this shit that

oh it's happening this year i'm i'm in this i'm in central this country i'm going that's

good to be like mama tried is like the best event to go to especially because it's in the winter

and you're not you fly there you drive there just you're not riding get over it but man it's the

culture it's like you like you get off a plane or you drive in it's like the whole town is just in

like in love with harley david's yeah you know it's it's one of my favorite events but like

born free is also great too because and i say this to everybody and they probably get tired of me

saying it but like if you take everybody at sturges and you shove them into one little park

that's where that's born free yeah it's all the coolest bikes out there it's all the the brands

and industry that you want to meet so you literally go this one spot i mean you go to sturges and

you can go to hamster hill or go to lucky 13 and you're gonna see a lot of that that side of the

industry or you go to black hills you see a lot of that side of the industry you go to different

spots like they're kind of spread out between like a 200 mile radius right that's what we're

saying it's a riding event it's not like datona datona is a little tiny circle of party yeah

and everything's right there and a hundred percent so i mean i think born free is a good

is a good thing and i i strongly believe that it's like it's gonna all the younger people that's

been going to that for the last 17 years we're the ones or i say we're i'm kind of the older

in that but that's going to be the norm of things to come you know what i mean a lot of the events

that are going to start are going to become in that vein in my opinion um i don't know just

kind of a tangent there but like i think it's it's good to go i mean even if you just fly in and

rent a car and drive in and go shake hands and i've always tell tell people all the time it's

like if you want to grow in this industry you got to go somewhere oh yeah of course even with the

internet the internet's a good like a second impression you know a good first impression

is to see someone in person you know yeah yeah of course you meet somebody it's a totally different

experience there it's like half the time the person you see on the internet is fake so it's

just like oh you're really not this guy no i get it completely i get it completely but yeah i do

plan on getting out to all those things it's kind of surprising as long as i've been involved with

it i've never even bothered to go out there but to me up until me getting older and starting to

hear different things i just kind of figured it's all just Daytona all over again it's like

i don't need that hell yeah brother culture kind of thing going through my head when i go out to

this event and now it's like you know i've i've gotten older i've heard different you know opinions

on it and it's like i like to ride yeah i don't i don't really care to go party yeah i'll go on

main street and i'll pound them back but at the end of the day i'd rather go riding out with my

friends and do that because that's the part of this that i like even though i'm a tech which

usually ends up hey buddy my shit's broken man it's like you know i'm coming out here to ride

that's why i ride dirt bikes now yeah it's like nobody talks to me about that friend's group that

has their shit together yes yes of course yeah of course or just work on all their bikes so you

at least know yeah but that was the thing and it's just like i got a lot of guys that come up from

miami and it was one of those things where they're like oh yeah we ride miami to search you know

i've always wanted to do that i really do yeah and maybe one day i will make that journey just

because i was on to do it now i'm not there of course it's even yeah to be fair like if you're

down in miami it's like you're coming from south america essentially so it's like a long ass ride

or drive no matter what you're doing i couldn't imagine going from there to born free because

it's like 3 000 miles to go from like jacksonville to born free then you add another 300 200 miles

whatever it is down another six hours of i-95 non-stop until you want to vomit and it's like

oh great and you wonder why all our tires are flat spots right in the center there's no chicken

strips they're like this on all of our bikes yeah there's no turns there but that's you know that's

why i trailer my stuff up to atlanta and run through the mountains and just ride ride ride

ride ride why the hell you do that because that six hours of i-95 at 110 120 miles an hour that

sucks so you're tired when you get to your destination like i'm done at least yeah i mean

i can definitely i don't like going i mean the only time i would usually go ride to florida

was for the down south camp you know and and then but you're not even getting deep into the

shit doing that that's the thing deep enough yeah well that's the thing yeah i'm leaving all the

culture that is that that you want to be around and start getting into what the hell is going on

down here i mean i will say that the the year that we went to down south and then we big trouble

craig and i yeah and uh and our buddy and another buddy of ours we all went to the keys that was

the first time and only time we were in the keys and that was pretty dope i like i like that that's

another one of those things it's like you know what i don't like to ride to the keys florida

yeah but that's the thing florida rides suck it's like kind of like datona we've all been to datona

and it's like oh cool you do the loop fantastic we've done that a million times over the keys

is a suck ass ride because in your brain you go it's going to take me two hours to do this

now you didn't realize no it's going to take you all day because it's infested with cops

and you can only jump you know in between the bridges or you can see far enough to start hauling

ass yeah but it's one of those rides that you have to do it's kind of like alligator alley it's

one of those rides that you have to do it it's boring it's straight but it's one of those just

iconic spots to just do it yeah i mean the keys is cool in general because it's like you got the

road it's this and water water the whole way down no it was a sick experience i i loved it

blew my mind that there's no beaches on it yeah the only the only beach was at this resort

you got a couple coves yeah and um just the the guanas the cats and the chickens everywhere it's

just a fucking vibe you know what i mean i dig i mean i enjoyed that if like if there was a way

to teleport to like was it freeport or some shit like that the first place before you hit the keys

i don't know what the name is what is that key lardo oh yeah homestead key lardo is the entrance

but yeah so even the drive to homestead is awful you're just on the interstate the whole

pound time and then it's like and i wrote a slow when i left the keys that time i jumped i was on

my other my last bagger and i made it all the way from there in like the the tail whip of a

hurricane that was coming in and then as soon as i got to 10 i got met with a cool front

that was gnarly and then i still made it to uh fucking town vicksburg which is next to

jackson mississippi ended up being like 1150 miles and that's the one number i can't get

passed every time i try to do like 1200 miles in a day like i get to 1150 and like either

my body can't do it or something fucks up on my bike or some shit it's rough that's putting you

through it it really is i it's i mean i'm a bagger though it's fucking easy it's just it's just

mindless time and you know sun beating you down alone no i was in the i was in the storm and then

i was in a cool front so yeah but you got that too you got that too that's that's one thing i

can't stand about the keys is you get there and back and then you're is you know red is this logo

when you get back and you're like why am i dying you gotta wear long sleeves there's a reason why a

lot of the boat shirts all day all day it's got the little flap on the back oh hell yeah

exhaust buddy there put it on helmet on so your back of your neck doesn't fry yeah so what you know

with the new spot here and everything you got going like what are some of those kind of deals

you've been putting out that you're talking about uh so i mean as far as the deals right now i'm doing

free dino pulls on anything i don't care who you are where it's been who where it's been this seems

like a loaded deal like what do you mean free like you come you go into the shop i hook it up to the

dino i pull it we see what your numbers are and then we go from there um so they have to stay and

listen to you go from there no they can do whatever they like cool man appreciate it i i man i don't

mind that that's one thing i'm i don't like say hey you're coming here no i'm saying hey you want

to see what your bike does every dino is going to be different a lot of people don't even realize that

they all read differently people use standard people use se people use uncorrected people use

smoothing ones people use smoothing five it just depends on the dino itself the operator that's

using it but it's like that's one thing that i offer that's constant i don't care that's your

round every day of the week doesn't matter hit me up drive the bike down throw it on the dino

we do a couple pulls we see what we're gonna time does that take you to do that just for people's

context uh realistically you know honestly a dino pull i mean it's it's not much of anything

it's an rpm wire and a ground wire going under your bike i've loaded up on the dino clamp the

thing down put those on start it warm it up make sure it's at the right operating temperatures

and rip it select 30 minutes worth of time yeah most of the time that's that's a pretty solid

thing there i would say about 30 minutes of time and then you see where you're at and i've had guys

here that say they're 170s and they're pulling 130s and it's just like that's a piece of mind as well

for a customer because that's a big thing that i don't really see anywhere's nobody really gets

to watch their bike be dynoed yeah i ask you if you want to come here do it what are the things

can a dino pull show you about your motor besides just horsepower and i mean health wise there depending

on what it is i mean if you've got you know this part this part this part in this part in there

and you've got a bike that should be pulling 200 horse for example got a turbo bike in there right

now and um well it's gone now for some other repairs and stuff but that bike came in should be

200 220 in that range pull 160 so it's like okay then we have an engine health problem so we either

have an engine issue we have an issue with the turbo itself now that's the thing that a lot of

people don't realize is when you get a bike especially we're talking turbo bike you know

what this is like you you hit it you you feel that shit yeah and people don't it doesn't matter if

it's 150 horse when you punch that throttle over 200 you feel that thing slam you back you feel that

aggressive power and you think yeah it's badass unless you're racing somebody and you get walked

by you know a regular 128 or something like that you don't even know yeah so that's another thing

and like i was saying with with the dyno tuning nobody really gets to see their bikes dyno tuned

you take them to the Harley dealer you drop the thing off they tune their bike you get a sheet

you see what it looks like are it cool half the time they don't have AFR readings on there

that's another thing that i it's like here you get my sheet front rear AFRs all your specs all

your humidity all your times all the information's there and if you want to come watch me do it

be my guess come right in hell i have no problem with that i like to teach people things because

i feel like you know we're we're a dying you know thing yeah the technology improves more and more

and more with this stuff soon and those flash tunes will be perfect at one point with AI and

all that craziness i guarantee one day it's gonna be like what do you need a dyno for i can calculate

the numbers and be spot on and what it would be if it's in a perfect situation yeah but i mean you

can also see like where okay maybe the shop that might have it maybe it was just a they didn't have

a dyno and they put a base tune on it and that's the big thing that i kind of show a lot of people

you see on my media now i've been pushing that a lot lately i've met so many people that get

flash tunes from you know wherever it may be dyno jet fuel moto or you know another company

and they put it on their bike and they ride it that's a base tune that's a base map that was

designed for you to get your garage or your shop or wherever it was done to a dyno to make sure

it's corrected i see a fours that are off the charts you have bikes that are super lean on

base maps those aren't meant to be ridden on and if you want to do it be my guess but it's not safe

for your engine it's not safe for the health of anything there whatsoever but even doing those

baseballs i can see that i can see if there's something that's not right you can see those

graphs i mean yeah some exhaust will give you a little bit of a torque dip or they'll give you

something but i've seen graphs that come into the shop and they just drop completely off yeah

and it's like it looks like an ukg there we have a problem there's something here that needs to be

fixed or they get you know a bunch of engine work and they just pop a screaming eagle stupid dongle

in there yeah and it's like that's just a base your rpms are still locked your like you have uh

your speed limiters are still all on there you know that's another thing about me with that's

safety yeah you're on the highway you're bugging in and somebody gets in your lane you don't have

the brakes you punch it oh guess what all these modern bikes now six gear 4 000 rpms bye it's over

revel in there straight down so that's something that's there you've got another 2000 rpms at least

you can go up in there and get the hell out of the way and the same thing with okay i drop gear

you're not going to disappear at that because your limiter is going to cut you off yeah and that's

that's a big thing so it's like i can tell if they've been unlocked there you wanted a bit harley

they could really do a good job with this and they i want the subscription for 150 horsepower

on my bike and they just unlock it with the the monthly oh man the monthly power package all of

a sudden now there's one more mode that i didn't did i unlocked excuse me sir we are repossessing

your sport mode today i forgot god damn i didn't change my credit card fuck oh no go to run somebody

on the street is you're in a limp mode now you didn't pay your $20 subscription fee

fuck i have the stage three class oh the stages the harley stages that works me i hate the stages

i had somebody come to me and go i have a stage six i'm like you have what what in tarnation is that

it's a good marketing tactic because it gives people an idea of like it makes it easy if you

think about it like i mean it's a good marketing tactic for you to to even come up with your own

stages within your brand to offer like hey this is our stage one is going to be this this isn't

this it makes it simple for people yeah because that's why harley used to bind a number one with

cheese right and so they can see that and then they see the value of it yeah exactly but that's

why harley did that with screaming eel and you see all the the things there i worked for harley

deal four years so it's like i'd know exactly what that is you you've got your basic stage one

tune air cleaner exhaust then tune air cleaner exhaust cam tune air cleaner exhaust you know big

bore kit the cam and then you know your whole entire top four five stage four it stops and then

that's your tune air cleaner exhaust cam big bore kit and headwork and that's it but that's a simple

way of telling somebody hey you know here here's a map it's kind of like i said before if you come

to me you say hey what cam do i put in and i go here here's cam here's cam here's cam here's a

you're gonna go home go what the fuck do i do you're gonna get lost yeah and that's what happens

that's what why those people push that here's a 475 so you're kind of like a horsepower shaman

shaman you kind of have to be yeah you kind of have to be i mean i'm i'm sure as hell you know

not the shaman of all shamans there's shamans way better than me out there but it's just like

that's the thing i like to experiment with these things and see what they actually do i mean different

air cleaners and different exhausts you think i mean maybe i know the answer this but so what you're

doing for the local market in miami might be different for how it's going to perform in texas

does that make sense yeah well of course that's going to perform differently here i mean you have

different altitude different humidity different changes there that are going to completely

affect that i've already had that come about um in miami it's never really cold yeah so in miami

i could drop these idols super low and that's the thing a lot of people don't realize about

tuning when you're tuning with cams when you know what that lobe is you can actually tune

for that cam and you can get that chop sound no matter what if you know what that is and you

know those specs it's just math i mean once you get that you can go okay i can push this here

push this here push this here and here we got this sound miami we can drop that low yeah you can't

like today it's like it's 50 degrees okay that bike doesn't want doesn't want idol right so you

gotta raise that thing up there so i mean yeah i'm i'm experiencing things that i'm not used to from

miami everybody is like oh texas is hot texas is hot it's a different kind of hot it's a different

kind of everything here as far as weather so the bikes perform differently and not only that but

it's a different kind of biker here you see these guys in miami with stage are we one two three four

oh you're riders and that's one thing that i really appreciate here is when i see okay so

i had the last three motors i had a 60 000 a 78 000 and now i told you about the

the check that's got the 100 000 mile you don't see that in miami yeah that doesn't exist we have

hot boy bikes and they they go from bike night the bike night and then they go on a trailer and

they're in sturgis and then they ride around for 500 miles and then they go back on the trailer and

back to miami that's that's one thing people here it's a big on maintenance that's that's the thing

that's very different because they're they're riding their bikes so damn much yeah so there's

there's that and this dust eats up everything it's crazy here that's another thing i'm not used to

i mean hell i don't even care about washing my truck anymore after i came here i used to go

through and wash the truck maybe once a month and it would look good at the end of the month miami

here it looks like hell 35 minutes after i paid 25 bucks in the car wash to get it done wait till

you get some of those west texas dust storms that come through it's pretty sick i can imagine i can

imagine it's like a dune but but that's the thing it's like the bikes are super clean you got built

bikes here there's not very many built bikes here that's the thing that motorwise yeah you see a lot

of really custom things i got a nice paint job i think that's because a lot of it i you know maybe

generalizing big time here but a lot of us do travel on our bikes so there's a level in which we

go main or motor power wise do it scared or just like i mean like you don't want to break down nobody

wants to break down on trip not necessarily sometimes i mean if you think about it like

you know like the the best example is like these new gen twos i mean i swear to god like i had to

rip down by y'all two days ago and i was there and back in a heartbeat and a hundred fucking miles an

hour honestly i don't even need more horsepower i just need to hear it yeah you know and i'm actually

scared that when i do put an exhaust on this bike i'm going to be fucking just balls to the wall

everywhere because there is at least a feeling of good power of course the second you put an

exhaust on it's like oh shit my bike's faster no it's not it's in your head but it's a good thing

you know and so like yeah i mean in my on the last generation inmates that they were pretty nice

too with like a cam and stuff but then 131s come out you tune it separately than like what harley

offered you get decent numbers out of those things and then that was great and i don't know man like

i just feel like a lot of people here like up here in dallas we have a lot more i wouldn't say a lot

more we have a we have a there's a lot of custom bikes appear there's a bigger performance in here

there's a we've just we've just been more uh together okay you know like houston has a lot

of good dudes a lot of good bikes a lot of good everything but they just haven't quite got like

their structural dynamic of them all coming together yeah austin same way a lot of good dudes

in south a lot of good dudes in north there's no conversions where they all kind of click together

senate i mean there's good dudes everywhere there's just not a cohesive scene together

anywhere else well most shops just hate each other and that's like you don't you don't need to do

that because like that's where well i'm different there because i feel like a lot of the shops out

here if you're talking about like our generations the younger shops most of us are good or we were

good right the the disconnect only come came through like bad relate like bad uh partnership

on a project or blah blah blah our customer got typical shit right but for the most part like we're

all pretty cordial together um but you gotta understand like when you have like in your case

like you got you go into an area where if a lot of those dudes are kind of like just you know not

busting ass the way they could be and then you come in and you're busting ass and marketing

and promoting yourself and getting out there and willing to spend the extra time

free dino pools things like that it makes other dudes have to like it's like the new guy that

comes to the job it's working hard and everything better it makes it seem better but that's the

thing i don't see like i've gone around to a couple shops locally introduce myself you know i'm that

guy like i don't there's no need for drama we're here to help each other and obviously that's a

whole another ballgame there but i can't cater to three percent of that area there's a hundred

thousand people there i'm not going to get them all yeah that's fine i'm maybe that guy from that

shop comes to me and maybe the guy went to me he's not my dude and goes over there it's a thing

that's the thing a lot of people don't even understand it's not even about the shop it's

about the person that runs the shop it's about the interactions that you have with them it's about

you know the fact that you can go in there and talk to them yeah that's one thing i get a lot

and i've always gotten a lot is guys come in and like you gave me the time of day yeah and it's like

you're busy you got all the stuff going on but you stopped you gave me the time of day

you told me what you feel is right what you feel is wrong and what you can do and what your

capabilities are and the other shop i go in there and they don't give me that and maybe like you

said maybe it's they were the king of the castle at one point time goes on things change things slow

down you know your place you know where you're at you know what's going on and then you got you

know somebody like me that pops in and it's like here you go you got evolution just dropped into

this little tiny town i've got a shop that's gigantic i got all this marketing stuff which

i hate doing and i don't i never do that it's like i got scared i moved to a place i don't

know if i'm even gonna survive here yeah so i'm gonna drop a bomb when i come in a time i got to

i'm gonna do all this stuff and make all these big moves and make all these relationship with people

and people look at me like who the fuck is this guy this like this could be bad it's actually not

because then you're gonna up your game you're gonna up your game you're gonna up your game

and then i'm gonna go over to your shop and talk to you and vice versa and like i've i've got shops

that come to me now i'm doing dino tuning for the local horley dealer i'm doing dino tuning for the

local indian dealer and all of the other places right across the street from me i got three different

shops that were bringing me stuff now it's like i i'm the new guy they got to try it out yeah and

it's like that's the thing like i'll give them the time of day i'll take care of them make sure

their shit's right and it's like maybe they haven't got that i have no idea i haven't seen any like

thing here where i can look and say hey this guy sucks yeah i haven't seen that i see a lot of

nice guys i've seen things that have been like whatever i give everybody a benefit of the dollar

it's like somebody comes to me and say oh man this guy fucking sucks he fucked up my bike it's like

go back to him tell him what the hell he did and give the guy the opportunity to make shit right

don't go talking shit to another shop because i don't like that either it's like i don't do that

i don't do that like shitty customers like to try to pit shops together because it gives them

like relevance and things like that they gain and a lot of shops gain trust by shit talking other

shops and it's like that come on come on there's no need for that there's absolutely no need for that

it's like that's that's the thing i've had plenty of people come in on the shop and say i don't

like this i don't know these people i follow half of them on instagram and i look at what they're

doing in their shops and it's awesome yeah it's not what i do it's very different my shop is

very different from everybody else of course i'm not from here yeah it's it's kind of like the same

thing if you get you know all these guys that come in here and they want paint jobs from you

that's your style that's your heart and soul in your bike but if they come to me and go hey can

we use your guy from miami and you look at it you go it's totally different why it's a different

culture different person it's a different idea it's it's the same thing i'm bringing that new fresh

thing into here and it's cool because i'm getting popular over it but i don't feel like there needs

to be any like heat on it either because i'm willing to help everybody i'm trying to go to

other shops and say hey you need tuning work come to me or work some shit out you build the bikes

make sure they're safe before they go on my dyno let me get the bikes out to your customers

i'm not looking to steal your customer i'm not looking to take from you i'm looking to help out

a community that's already you know how it is it's just it's a rough community to try to bring

any kind of unity too because i mean hell half the guys are prejudiced about the bike that they're

on uh you're on a sports or oh you're on a fixer it's like oh you have a performance bagger uh

fuck you you got a hundred thousand dollars on your bike and i can't afford that and bro we're all

on two wheels at the end of the day yeah it doesn't matter and that's another thing about me too

i'm not a hundred percent v twin i came from triumph i came from enfield i came from hondas

it's like i do everything my favorite bikes to tune sport bikes all day long

they're fun as fuck to get on there i was tuning alcohol and methanol how annoying roms in miami

man like doing cool shit has have you been uh has he been rapping out sport bikes at the shop

yet had two just man he threatened to call cops on me every day he's like man i'm done with you

get out of here dino dino shits loud man the sound was something that everybody was kind of

sketched out about because obviously i'm in a very new development and there's not many people

that are in there yet there's only a few different jobs how loud is it with everything shut outside

of it it's really not that bad i was actually surprised because when i came here and i see the

building structures here i'm like what is this paper mache shit you guys call shops here miami

cat five you got man i could punch a window in my old place and it won't break here it's like

ha that's the thing you got a hurricane proof all those buildings there so i expected the

buildings that i see here which okay like barn style i think they're aircraft hangar kind of

things but it's like they're insulated really good i don't see a problem i mean i do benefit

off of it because you know what's outside of my shop i got a biker bar right there i'll tell you

what is riley's tavern for me or riley's or wait what's the what are you talking about different

i have bobby's billy's i think it's bobby's sound it used to be billy's ice and now it's bobby's

ice they moved from like the downtown region and then they moved into there and they actually set up

how close are they to you 50 to 100 feet oh they're in the same complex dude when you when you

when you go into that bar and you sit down at the bar you see my big evolution monkey logo on the

back of my trailer staring you in the face nice so at night when they're packed they don't have

anything going on open that door i'm i get guys that come over late at night going the hell is

going on over here yeah but it's it's cool that i have that and then riley's is maybe a mile away

yeah that's cool it's it's not very far i'd be i'd i'd lose my shit being that close to a bar

well that's why i wanted to do that's the thing that's why i wanted to do

i mean he he was worried about me he was like oh fuck you got a bar right next to you i'm like

i know i know i'll be fine but that was the thing i was talking about the poker run i want to do

a poker run because we have so many cool bars going through there he's made all these little

stops i think all those like old school things that like biker type games you know not not games

like uh you know uh slow races shit i'm talking about like like the poker runs and those kind of

things like find a new way to like do that but throw a newer twist on it so it doesn't feel like

it's your dad's or your grandfather's way of doing it and i i feel like it'll get people to ride

their bikes and go support some establishments and it could be fun you know what i mean like

when we first all started getting together up here we remember matt we used to do a lot more rides

like and i've gotten so busy and a lot of people have as well so like we commit to our bike night

every week but like man it used to be nice when we would go to bike night and then we'd be setting up

a ride for saturday or sunday or something like that and we just haven't had the time to do that much

and like i haven't had a weekend off you know in since last year so oh i know i haven't ridden at all

i mean when i first met you at the dealer him and i left and we went through wemberley that was the

first and only real ride i did i haven't gotten on the bike i mean i'm still my fairings at least

in transit now so i'll have my bike back together as whole soon yeah so i'm sure i'll be out and

about now but i didn't really ride at all and there's so many places that i look at around

there that are just awesome and i mean i've looked at google shots of the area and it's like oh

there's so many these are the roads that i like i mean as much as i love going into the mountains

that ah shit hairpin turn yeah i like it but i'm not about it here you've got these

wide nasty turns where it's like i can do 120 on it yeah it's gonna feel

well like one of my favorite roads is uh is northwest of austin it's uh 1431 it goes from

like sear park to marble falls yeah and man that one is just big sweepers a couple tight ones but

good ones you can just dig in and just carry a corner out i love those ones too that's the thing

the twist of sisters is not too far from you guys but like i don't know i've i've never liked them

much i just hear the roads are kind of screwed up it's a lot of israeli bad does all the quarries

it's like uh it's good grip but it is that kind of uh uh chip seal kind of rock stuff

yeah it's what all the roads are and so like you don't want to be if you have a nice bike like you

don't want to be the behind you want to be in front because it'll fucking you'll come back with

i see that a lot it's a lot of rock chips and those things um but i mean just like like river

road that i keep talking about is like that's a cruise road like you're not ripping it's a 20

mile an hour road but like you catch that thing at the right time like like i said in about within

the next month the wildflowers are gonna start to bloom and you're gonna be like i don't know what it is

i'm just into flowers right now you know it's like you're gonna be cruising through there's gonna be

bluebonnets popping up the ground's blue and purple and yellow and orange and you're gonna be like

babe get out there let's take let's do a photo shoot you know like it

next thing you're gonna be watching birds i'm gonna call you in two months

dude it's fucking sick man let's go ride and watch the flowers let's do it

it's a good vibe man and uh i can't talk shit i'm driving around on a teal and

fucking pink bike so you know it'll mess it'll go right it'll blend in i can't talk shit like

easter eggs i mean i had coffee this morning um but no i think it's good that you're here both

you guys and uh you know like we just need i think what texas needs a lot is just it like

businesses that are enthusiasts that are gonna get out there and go support other events that are

going on that are going to be supporting the community that ride that love this shit and i

think that as you know you guys are already proving it i just think that's going to help

everything grow and get better here it's going to be more enticing for other motorcycle related

brands to come and move here um but also like it's going to get more the population that exists here

to want to get out and go jump on their bikes and be a part of all the shit that's got this

getting kind of a stumbled up or rambled up that's part of the build up that really is i mean that's

part of the reason you know obviously i came out here to you know start some shit up and get moving

and and do what i'm doing and like offer it's like that i'm offering you know bigger engine

builds for like crazy prices and stuff like that just to put my name out there but also it's just

like it gets other people wanting to do cool shit yeah and that's the thing that i realized it's like

you know everybody's got the same basic black road god i mean i feel the same way about everything

that's got a number on it now i had a number on mine in 2020 and i'm looking at it now like i just

want to get this off of here and uh it's old school it's old school now i remember i was like oh

yeah i painted my fxr flames and then it's like oh no this shit never was out of style you uh i

gotta remind myself all the all the time about this there's a lot of riders that are everyday

homies that come out all the time that didn't pick up a bike till 2020 2021 no that was the time to

ride i mean it's just when you've been here for a long time just in the motorcycle industry it just

feels like a constant and you don't i don't know i i've never really looked at like oh that dude's

only been here for two years or 10 years or whatever but i mean some of my best friends that

made across the country have only been riding for like three four years but they're just

into it and they're all in a lot of people go like that you you know how that whole scene goes i

mean you pick up one bike and then it's down the rabbit hole we go and here we are with a garage

full of shit and you're wondering what the hell did i do with my life i've got you know a million

dollars in motorcycles sitting here what's going on but it's crazy because we talk about 2020 like

like it was yesterday because it feels like it does feel like yesterday but that was a

obviously it's a fucked up time i'm gonna throw a lot everybody did i mean i'm in i'm in florida

at the time so it was just like hey for us yeah but there was more people getting into riding

buying motorcycles going out there and getting on the street than i have ever seen before yeah 2020

was a very good year for prospering as a motorcycle shop everybody was servicing the bikes going out

those stemmy checks man they went to a lot of shit yeah and that was the thing it was just

people were doing that and i i think that brought a whole different generation of bikers into the

scene as well which is a good thing we we need that we need people to continue you know doing this

stuff we don't want to die out and be like oh look our performance bikers are now you know

that 19 you know 40-something panhead over here but it definitely brought about a lot of a new

scene a new generation especially in miami miami did you imagine a hundred-year-old plastic

it's gonna be so brutal i'm just thinking of those old like 80s gold wings right now getting on it

and you go is that an easy bit yeah just literally it turns to dust as best as some shit oh yeah of

course but that's that's the thing i mean pushing the scene getting it out there and you know actually

doing something that's why i like i said i appreciate what i see so far in texas you guys

got riders out here they're doing shit they're putting miles on their bikes they're going out there

maybe it's because they got places that are worth riding in miami there isn't really much worth

riding and you know what you've been to qs 10 times you don't want to go there again you've done

alligator alley well especially with performance back here that's hot yeah that's nasty out there

you don't want to go out there and do that that's what i was telling you about nitty gritty earlier

that nitty gritty is a good time and it i think it would be a good it's a it's the weekend before

yeah y'all's event but it's like a good chance for you to get out and do some like back woods

you know it's chopper but it's also a lot of performance bikes out there and there's

events are always the best they are there there's always that's not a rowdy old school kind of

shit saying that the rowdy is just aesthetically it looks better you know like the bikes are cool

it's not a bunch of fucking golf carts everywhere there's not like a you don't pass a like uh you

two football fields full of like you know trailers that cost more than our houses

to get into the event you feel like you're going to ride bikes with bikers but how how rowdy i mean

are there hot dogs on fishing poles not fishing poles but there are hard dog hot dogs see there

you go that's that that is a level of rowdy right there that's that's what's going down that's what's

going down a lot of malnudity we really we thrive on malnudity and i mean i mean that's that's kind

of a thing i mean i i started doing uh like fdr races and a lot of the off-road dirt bike stuff

when i was in florida because it's like i stopped riding with bigger groups of people and it's kind

of like my couple people i'd ride with yeah and it was mainly because you know obviously being a

tech somebody breaks down and oh cool the thing that i am doing to just vent and just get out there

and go and just chill and relax has turned into work yeah or you got guys that see me out on the

fatbomb and it's just like they come up next to me and they're like yeah let's go let's go let's go

so it's like i got into the dirt bike thing but it's funny you say that but i was sitting around

at race and one of these guys looked at me and he goes you know how fucking weird this is i was

like what and he's like there's a bunch of dudes getting naked in the woods and riding dirt bikes

and they're just flashbacks to that yeah no but those are always the wild events

i always you remember that movie euro trip oh no i know where this is going where all the dudes

were going to the nude beach yes and it was just naked dudes everywhere and one chick goes there and

it's like fucking they pop up like meerkats or some shit man come on man biker rinse are always

gonna be like that it's always guy dominant we're a bunch of dudes talking about our cooler bikes

that one meme just out here and you know washing this thing out here

oh yeah that's how it is yeah oh yeah yeah yeah i mean it's like pointy underwear oh it's

underwear is tight oh oh yeah especially if you're big into the bikes that's another thing like i've

had my wife call me out a million times so it'll be like you know even the old easy ridership you

gotta post up here and my wife's like oh staring at that hot ass bitch on there it's like no i really

like this panhead that's on there she's like you're really staring at that fucking biker and i'm

like yes you don't get this this is like this is my childhood poster on the wall i didn't give

a shit about the swimsuit bitch yeah of course that was fucking great but it's a bike man this is cool

i want this on the perimeter is all like the centerfolds and i i wanted that to be there just

to remember how far titties have come because this is the early days of breast implants or grooming

it's like the the oh yeah like everything 100 percent i mean it's the same thing with my bathroom

in the shop it's like you walk in there and it's like all right i asked he was gone it's hard to

find classy and tasteful too which is really difficult like i just didn't want the easy rider

pinups all over the wall i wanted like framed shit when i did mine but it's like that's that's

how i feel it's like i love this it's set up yeah it's not good but yeah i think it's it's just

it's the culture you know it's part of it i mean there's a lot of other things in those old easy

rider magazines you could post up on the wall they just don't fit today's time frame but it's

you know it's like i feel like uh having cool bikes and hot women and things like that or just

women in general has always been part of the whole it's every all american guy's dream that's that's

if they made a new cool guy movie about bikers now and it was just like no chicks in the whole

thing it was just the dude has lots of friends that'd be a more pretty accurate accurate like oh

man what bars are those like we'll come over later should like that you just see the weird

shit he just did is that did he just oh god no it's every night like what's happening

oh yeah all all the nasty shit but hey that's part of the culture it is i mean it's it's evolved

but the crazy thing is as much as people like to harp on the shit online oh you know we're

it's progressive all about it's like man you got a fucking buffalo chip you go hang out camp zero

you go to the you know the born free camp outs dude i saw a butthole at born free a couple years

ago on stage a chicks a chicks butthole had to clear clarified it i mean at least there was that

at least it wasn't a dudes butthole whether you probably saw a few of those two the shit still

goes on it still happens you know what i mean so you know it's it's not as crazy as it was but also

you know 60s 70s 80s there was a lot more yeah this is culturally appropriate for what we're

doing now now not so much but no 100 i got it i got it's a good time all right so you're you're

established you're here both of you guys are here um we for for sure we have the grand opening of

both spots taking place on uh what's the weekend what's the date on that march it's march 26 it's

a thursday um that's the thursday before moto gp and yeah so basically new brothels it's about

30 miles south of austin for the most part 40 miles um that thursday is a good day to come

into all this stuff because uh there's all kinds of shit going on from that day on the weekend

friday there's stuff going on um you got moto gp i know cowboy harley is going to have some of the

racers from the harley stuff there um there's supposed to be i think between visionaries

doing a bike show or some shit somewhere i don't know there's something else going on between cowboy

harley and in the spot so it's going to be a it's going to be a raging it's going to be a lot of

motorcycles down there i think you got hand built show as well hand built show is going on that

weekend too yeah and fendango so it's it's a shit show it's basically oh yeah oh it's it's going to

be nuts it's going to be nuts yeah i'm excited yeah that's that's the point um you got the drag

truck coming out that's cool is that that's a collaboration i imagine from both of you guys

but they're bringing it to the track too right yeah they're bringing the track right no no this

here no that's all okay it's going to us there you go and then uh what else is going on so what's

the premise of everything going on for the grand opening pre-party stuff i mean that's just

hey i'm here yeah that's really all it it really was meant to be is hey come check the place but

you got the bar on site there you know 50 feet away yeah we we have a lot of stuff going on we

have a lot of people that are coming in from the outside setting up a lot of different vendors

i mean obviously you know we're we're friends we do have a separation of what we've got going on in

there as well um i've got my people holders got his people and you know we're just trying to have a

good time honestly just a good start to the weekend um but yeah there's a lot of stuff in

the works right now i've been announcing it holders been announcing it um there's been

a lot of things going on we're we're trying to get it all out there to the public yeah so i feel

like this podcast will probably come out like a week before yeah yeah another thing for all the

fast boys i'm gonna do a dino shoot out bring your bike see we got i got awards for uh fastest

bike of the night i'm going to do that for a period of time so there's going to be limited

entries in that but i don't want to spend my entire you know grand opening party sitting there on the

damn line but i'll probably do it for about an hour an hour and a half just popping bikes on there

and getting them out we got a little bike show going on some other things and uh just you know

come check out the shop check out you know cobblin what he's got going on and all the awesome stuff

that he's bringing to the table for the new generation and you know that's a that's a big

thing right there hell yeah all right guys well i appreciate you guys coming up here is fun uh the

next time we do this for sure there will be alcohol on the table oh we had to be professional man

this time yeah this time all right some stories so uh evolution psych what what's the

butchered me like he butchered aluminum yeah evolution performance performance okay you always

got to get that the adjective at the end and figure out which one it is for everybody

it's okay it's okay so that's what that's what the instagram is on the website

instagram is evolution performance cycles okay cool all right well thank you sir dawn

donatello donnie brosco i don't think seeing me something cooler uh why do i have to be a

fucking ninja turtle i think that's too miami that's weird that's not that mafia kind of you got

you got the whole like you're you're you know donatello would be that you would be a donatello

he's the the brains of like all the ninja shit and the gadgets and everything right we all want

to be Michelangelo dude they're staying in the cards for us all no it's really not i get it

i'll accept that all right man hope you guys enjoy that one thing dawn for coming up and

sitting down the studio if you guys heard in the podcast they're doing a grand opening

big party at their location in new bruntles texas it's going down

one second one second i got the map right here the map the uh the calendar it is going down

march 26 that's thursday it is the weekend before king of the baggers down in austin

fandango down in uh fredericksburg it's going to be a good time i think some of us me and the

boys we might go camp at uh waco springs while we're there on that thursday night so if you're

gonna be a good time hopefully you guys enjoy these podcasts uh please don't hesitate to check out

our sponsors that is how we keep this show going also our patreon is a lifeline to uh

helping this thing stay alive we have a great little uh community there that you can kind of

join and help bring some flavor and some good times none of that makes sense basically we have

a group chat there's a unreleased podcast there's a lot of cool stuff going on there and we're

always looking for some new blood to come in there and spice things up so appreciate it

i'm getting ready to go to nitty gritty right now so i'm kind of like running through the

end of this just trying to hurry up and get it done and say something important so i can get

the packing because i'm ready to hit the road and go camp and ride this chopper and have a good time

so that's my excuse hopefully you guys are doing something rad this weekend on motorcycles if not

you can hear about mine next week whenever i'm talking about it all right you guys have a good one

peace

Evolution Performance #458

About this episode

jet engine boats

unlimited hydroplanes

Miami Marine Stadium

502 big block

clutch vacuum booster

Chevrolet Corvette

dyno

machine shops

cam

push rods

MIPS safety standards

maintenance

Harley-Davidson FXR

barn find

Sturgis

Daytona

Leesburg Bikefest

Smoky Mountain Bike Week

Born Free Motorcycle Show

dino pull

horsepower

turbo

AFR readings

flash tune

Screamin' Eagle

speed limiter

subscription-based power packages

limp mode

stages (Harley-Davidson)

Triumph

Honda

sport bikes

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